


The Lavernius Pit

by Lionfire42



Series: RvB Fallen Angels [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue, Supernatural, The Fallen - Thomas E. Sniegoski
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angel Wings, Angels, Diners, Fallen Angels, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Nephilim, Referenced Child Murder, Religious Content, Religious Discussion, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22887049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lionfire42/pseuds/Lionfire42
Summary: Like a bad joke, the first time he met another Fallen since his own banishment began was when they walked into his restaurant.
Relationships: Agent Carolina & Lavernius Tucker, Junior & Lavernius Tucker, Lavernius Tucker & Agent Washington, Michael J. Caboose & Agent Carolina
Series: RvB Fallen Angels [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1645183
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	The Lavernius Pit

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of an on and off series that I've been slowly typing on my phone for three months. It's got elements of Thomas E. Sniegoski's "Fallen" series (which I loved as a kid), Supernatural (which I've barely ever watched), and is inspired by all of those fallen angel Avengers AUs I read pre-Civil War. Let me know how it reads, because again, I've been typing this on my old, cracked, battered phone on the train to and from work.

Like a bad joke, the first time he met another Fallen since his own banishment began was when they walked into his restaurant.

When the redhead strode into his hole-in-the-wall diner, Amduscias nearly sent a holy chef’s knife through her heart. As it was, he restrained himself to only sending a mild wave of compulsion through the diner. Nothing dangerous, just an increased sense of urgency; humans got the feeling that while whatever they had planned or wherever they were going wasn't incredibly important, they should probably begin making their way there. The three or so humans sitting within calmly and without question stood, gathered their belongings and trooped out into the rain, unaware of the two ethereal beings wrapped in flesh having a stare down behind them.

“ _Enepsigos_ ,” the diner-owner broke the silence in a tongue unheard by and incomprehensible to mortal ears. “ _Aren't you a sorry sight for unwilling eyes?_ ”

Enepsigos sighed, turning her back to her fellow Fallen to lock the restaurant door and flip the old-fashioned sign on the door to ‘closed’ before crossing over and settling herself on a seat at the bar, ignoring the butcher knife wreathed in holy fire that materialized in Amduscias’ hand.

“ _Amduscias. It’s been...a long time_.”

“ _Not fucking long enough_ ,” the fallen angel snapped. “And it’s Tucker here.”

“Fair enough,” Enepsigos shrugged, switching to the American English. “Humans act like they can't pronounce anything anymore. I’ve been going by the name Carolina. I swear, people talked better when half of them were illiterate.”

The holy knife cracked the bar counter as Tucker restrained himself just enough to avoid breaking the counter entirely in half, instead allowing the burning tip to slide itself into the marble.

“Why are you here?” he demanded through gritted teeth. He could feel his Grace, diminished though it was, seeping through his skin. He clamped down the desire to spread his wings in a challenge. He preferred not have to replace the appliances.

Carolina spread her hands in a gesture of peace. “Believe it or not, I just moved here. I only wanted to check out the coffee scene, maybe get a bite to eat. I didn't even sense you until I walked in. Blood runes, I assume?”

Tucker, after a long pause, gave a curt nod. She already knew of their presence at this point, though their exact location would remain a closely guarded secret. He hadn't spent several weeks painting symbols in nooks and crannies within the walls just to have the whole network collapse because he couldn't keep his fucking mouth shut.

“So?”

“So what?”

She--and calling her she was a bad habit instilled over the millennia. She was not a she, nor he a he (until it mattered). They simply were--picked up a discarded menu. “What’s your special?” She sipped the still warm coffee from an abandoned mug. “Not a bad blend. You use your own beans?”

Tucker snatched the menu away. “Yeah, we are not doing this shit. Read the sign and get the fuck out.”

“But I’m hungry!”

“We don't eat!”

“You’re going to turn down money?”

“I don't need your shitty money.”

Carolina stared at him, then around at the diner, with its peeling walls and dim lighting and unbuffed floors, before pointedly staring back at him.

Tucker ground his teeth in frustration. “How come you weren't this defiant back home, when you should have said no?”

Carolina winced, and yeah, that was a pretty low blow. Not like he had room to talk or anything. They’d both fucked up with the Big Guy. He knew Carolina had regrets.

He had the same ones almost every day.

Still, Enepsigos had always been resilient even throughout the war and the subsequent Judgment and Fall. A few half-hearted insults were no feathers off her wing. “I’ll take an omelet.”

It would be three weeks before Tucker saw Carolina again. He was clasping Junior in his arms, trying to shield the young boy from the freezing rain as they trudged away from the small clinic towards the bus stop.

Carolina had been spot-on when she had made her assessment: the diner wasn't doing so well. Between the fact that it was shadowed by a ritzy coffee shop and down the block from a McDonald's, both of which boasted wifi, it was no wonder he was usually in the red. Therefore, a car was out of the question.

He turned the corner just as the bus pulled off, the driver ignoring his frantic yells and waves.

“Fuck!” He glanced down at Junior. “Ignore that buddy.”

Junior, being the sassy little shit he was, responded with an exaggerated eye roll, his cheap hood failing to keep out all the pelting rain, so several dark strands stuck next his tiny pudgy nose and plastered to his forehead.

Tucker began to trudge along the street, releasing a bit of his Grace to warm his shivering son. He didn't need to get any sicker; his constitution was delicate enough as is without the deluge.

A quick bark of a siren startled him, and he cursed his inattention. He, a former holy warrior, startled by some human machine!

He turn to squint through the storm as the police car that had pulled alongside him rolled down it’s window.

“Need a ride?” Carolina called, the badge on her chest gleaming.

Tucker gritted his teeth and was about to hurl some choice insults in a few different languages when he sensed--more than saw--the human behind the wheel next Enepsigos. A fellow officer, no doubt.

Reluctantly, Tucker slid into the back seat, cradling his son. The interior was mercifully warm and dry, and though Tucker wasn't necessarily affected by temperatures, save the most extreme, Junior was. The boy sighed in relief and the warm air drifted over his body, and Tucker pulled down his hood, so his dark locks could begin to dry.

The human introduced himself, but Tucker couldn't honestly try to remember the man’s name. Human names and faces blurred and aged, and while the eight years he’d had with his son felt like some of the longest and best ones he’d had in millennia, it was still but a drop in the ocean compared to his existence.

(He remembered the splendor of the pearly gates, so sue him if he didn't feel the need to remember some hick-town deputy.)

“And anyway, Carolina here was telling me how she just happened to meet you in that little coffee place off Third, and I said, ‘Hey, we should give the poor guy a ride. Maybe we’ll get a discount later!’” The lanky man looked at the father and son in the back seat, his crooked teeth stretching into a lopsided grin. “I take my coffee like I take my soul. Blacker than asphalt.”

That was a lie. The man’s soul certainly had some spots, but it was more a fading bruise. He was annoying, but at the very least, he was a good person.

“It’s a diner,” he still felt the need to correct, because like hell was going to be compared to some overpriced, over-complicated, overcompensating fruity-tooty hipster dive with six types of milk, sugar and water and seasonal cups.

Get dairy or drink it black, bitch.

“Even better!” the deputy exclaimed. “You serve donuts?”

Tucker gave a strained smile. “Nope, just a home-cooked meal at Tucker’s Diner.” _You want a donut, go to Dunkin’ Donuts, dumbass_.

“So, there a lady of the house? Or gentleman,” he added hastily upon seeing Tucker’s face. “No judgement.”

There was a lot of judgement.

“No,” Tucker responded, not wanting to seem unfriendly. All it took was a peeved and nosy officer to dig in deep enough to find out “Lavernius Tucker” had only existed for a decade or so. “She’s...gone.”

“Ah…” The officer gave the appropriate hiss of sympathy. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Tucker gave him a practiced wane smile. “Thank you. Junior here helps me remember her, every day.”

It’s a good thing the man couldn't read and sense the shimmer of Grace all Fallen exuded, or see the raised, incredulous eyebrow Carolina was shooting through the rear-view mirror, because Tucker was lying through his shiny, white celestial teeth.

In truth, he hadn't known he had a son until a barely remembered one night stand was dropping off an infant and crib just before he opened for the day.

That was interesting Monday.

Still he’d fallen in love with the little tyke, sleeping peacefully in his cheap little crib, tiny dark fist clutching the thin blue cotton blanket. He was barely old enough to have left the hospital. And it wasn't his fault both of his parents were dumb-asses. He at least deserved for someone to give him a chance.

(Tucker refused to think about the sole, chance he’d been given, the one--admittedly huge--mistake he made and how that wasn't how you parented, Dad! You’re supposed to love them and show them mercy and the error of their ways, not kick me out because you forgot to give your second-borns the same love and affection you gave your other kids.

Fuck that “spare the rod” shit.)

The officer continued to chatter on, as once again, Carolina and Tucker had another stare down, only this time via mirror.

_What have you done?_ Carolina's eyes glared accusingly, jade irises flickering from Tucker’s face to Junior’s and back again.

_What’s done is done and I don't regret it._ The masquerading Fallen raised his chin in challenge. _What are you going to do about it?_

While he wouldn't like to, he’d destroy this car and flee if Enepsigos even looked at his son wrong. The human would be killed, which, while unfortunate, it’s death wouldn't haunt him.

(He’d done a lot worse. He’d fought in innumerable human wars. He healed and killed and saved and condemned. Countless people had died every other century or so, when his rage and hatred and grief had been too much and he’d lashed out, uncaring of any who were in his way.

He’d bath his hands in the blood of millions if it meant his son was safe.)

Carolina appeared to see the brewing darkness in his eyes, rather than rising to the challenge, she simply rolled her eyes, her mouth set in a fondly exasperated frown. It was quite an achievement of muscular athleticism.

_You were always hardheaded._

Lavernius bared his teeth in a vicious parody of a grin. Damn right he was.

Despite living over a restaurant, the heating in his apartment was shit.

Junior shivered and scrambled under his thick covers, releasing a sigh of relief as the fluffy comforter quickly cocooned him. The bed creaked as Tucker sat down, pulling up the covers over the child's skinny shoulders.

“Alright,” the father smiled, soft and sincere and secret to all save his progeny. “Medicine or story?”

Junior’s nose wrinkled as he contemplated the pros and cons of each choice with all the brainpower his eight-year-old mind could muster. “Medicine,” he finally decided, though his long-suffering expression wasn't out of place on the face of a man tasked to clean dog shit from the park.

Tucker handed the boy a small cup filled with cloudy-looking apple juice. Despite his best efforts, the five or so pills the boy was forced to take daily made everything Tucker put them into taste like shit, but apple juice made it barely tolerable. Still, Junior grimaced as he hastily chugged the concoction down, years of experience showing in an instant.

Tucker hid his own grimace. Despite years of doctor visits, tests, scans and prescriptions, Junior’s fragile immune system had barely recovered enough for him to go to school, and even that was tenuous; the child spent more time doing at-home assignments than actually sitting in a classroom. He didn't know why or how his body had been compromised to such an extent, but it fucking sucked to have to have his own son try to reassure him after a body-wracking coughing fit, with that weak, gap-tooth grin, that he was alright, I’m fine, Daddy, my chest barely hurts!

Dad damn it.

The boy finished his medicated juice and snuggled deeper beneath the comforter, gazing at his father expectantly.

Tucker grinned, reaching for the worn book resting on the chipped nightstand. “More ‘ _Hamster Huey’_?”

Junior shook his head, tangled curls bouncing with the movement. “Can you make up a story tonight?”

Tucker blinked, surprised. “Me?”

Junior gave a small shrug. “I just don't feel like Hamster Huey tonight.”

Tucker _hmm_ -ed in thought, before giving a sly grin. “Well, I know of one.” He cleared his throat and began in a dramatic tone: “Here is the story of an adorable little boy, and how he came to be. You see, when a man and a woman love each other very much--!”

He broke off laughing as Junior began to pummel him with his tiny fists. “Daaaadddddd!!” he whined.

“Alright, alright--okay!” Tucker sniggered as his boy hit at him. “Okay, okay, for real this time. Once upon a time…”

He trailed off as tried to think of an original story. Unbidden, the encounter with his ~~cousin~~ ~~family~~ ~~Enepsigos~~ Carolina swam to the front of his mind and he found himself beginning his story with: “Long ago, before humans walked the earth, there existed a mighty being, with power indescribable and incomparable to any mortal creature. He was great and powerful and lonely. So he created the universe and from the light of the universe, his firstborn children.

“But these children, they were...well, they were kind of bland. And their Father grew kind of...bored with them. So He created planets and elements and observed their reactions, was pleased with how the universe seemed to only need a push to function on its own.

“And eventually, so fascinated by the machine he set in motion, He created animals and all manner of creatures, delighted with how they interacted with his setting. But they were mindless and also bland and so he created a creature with nearly limitless potential: a human. If fact, he made two. And he showed them such care and love.

“But among his firstborns, a rebellion was brewing. There was resentment, a lot of resentment, that their Father would love these simple creatures, seemingly more than them. He claimed He had made them in his image, and as he was perfection, so were they. The First were...not pleased. The greatest among them, the first of the First declared the humans flawed and sought to destroy them by gathering an army of its fellows and attempting to depose the Father. Those who were, like, mindlessly loyal, well they stood between the Father and the Rebels. Lives were lost and for the first time, blood was spilled in nirvana.

“Eventually, the Father grew tired of his Firstborn’s antics. He’d seen the battles as mere squabbles at first, but as time went on, and His most loyal ones died, He decided to step in. The First of the First, leader of the Rebellion challenged Him.”

Tucker became aware of his Grace simmering under his skin, the never-forgotten anger rising within him. He forced it down. It was a festering wound that never healed, and he long learned to ignore it.

“The First didn't stand a chance. He was defeated with no effort on Father’s part, and was thrown from the cosmos to the deepest parts of the earth, locked away. His followers were cast out as well, some joining him in prison, others simply being torn away from their home, and forced to live with the same people they wanted to destroy.

“And now they just sort of...wander. Angry and hurt and sad. They don't know what to do. Maybe they never will.”

Tucker went quiet. The room was quiet, the only sound broken by the ticking of the clock on the wall.

“Is that what happened to you?”

Tucker blinked. “Huh?”

Junior fiddled with his sheets. “Is that why I don't have a Grandpa or Grandma? Were you kicked out your house?”

Every time, Tucker told himself he could no longer be surprised by how perceptive his son was, and every time he wanted to slap himself, because Holy shit his kid was _smart_.

“Something like that, buddy,” he admitted, eventually. “It--it’s complicated, little man. There was a lot that went down, and a lot of mistakes got made and--lot of people fuc- _fudged_ up.”

“Was that police-lady mean to you, too?”

“Carolina? No, no it was just...we hadn't seen each other in a long time. We fought, but we tended to fight _beside_ each other more often than _against_ each other.”

“Oh,” Junior tried and failed to keep his yawn suppressed. “Okay, then.”

Tucker glanced at the clock, surprised at how late it had gotten. “That’s enough for tonight, buddy. You need your rest.” He fluffed the pillows and tucked the comforter up under Junior’s chin before clicking the bedside lamp off and moving to stand.

“Dad?”

Tucker paused. “Yeah, J-man?”

“...Do you still feel lost? Still?”

“No.” In his millennia of half-truths and lies, never had any answer been truer. He leaned down and placed a kiss on his son’s brow. “I found my home, right here.”

Junior gave an exaggerated eye-roll, but did not move away. Tucker counted that as a win as he crossed the room and quietly closed the door with a final “Good night”.

Tucker stood for a moment, staring at the closed door, behind which his greatest treasure lay, drifting off to sleep.

Father had always admitted He was selfish. There was no doubt his progeny had inherited the same trait. He would kill for his son. None would harm him. They would _burn_ first.

Holy fire erupted in his hands.

The _world_ would burn first.

The rain was still pouring down later that night. The restaurant's water drain was being pummeled so hard, there was almost a single continuous note rather than a army of raindrops slamming the rusted metal. The drains had quickly become clogged, the mush of fallen leaves, mud and paper forming moats and forcing the water to develop into miniature lakes around its intended destination.

The deluge felt nice on his skin. It was less nice on his wings. A monster wingspan of sixteen, the water was quickly finding many crevices to soak into, despite the thin covering of Grace keeping them from becoming completely waterlogged. He could have used more Grace to keep them completely dry, but his didn't want to risk his light becoming a beacon to any potential...guests.

(And of course, he didn't have much to spare as it was. There was the chance that he’d need every drop of power he could muster, if worse came to worse.)

He closed his eyes and centered himself on the roof of his apartment, just above the diner itself. The howl of the wind carried a cacophony of sounds with it: the honks of cars on the distant interstate as the stragglers of the night shifts tried to get home. The over-enthusiastic exclamations of an infomercial host on a TV a quarter mile away. The irritated caterwaul of drenched alley cats. And…

The sound like dozens of sheaves of rustling paper.

Wings.

Amduscias eyes opened. The air sizzled as his dual pronged holy blade appeared in his hand, the flames flickering over it far hotter than any flame man was capable of producing.

His arm jerked up as a fiery knife came down towards his head. The lithe and muscular form of Enepsigos followed a split second later, the strength and control in her body evident by her only cracking the cement roof instead of going straight through it.

Still it was too close, damn it! His kid was sleeping under that roof!

They used their larger bulk and weapon to trap Enepsigos’ arm against their side, and flared their wings to force them airborne, grabbing their other wrist, and twisting, trying to force their opponent’s second weapon to dissipate.

But Enepsigos had not been a captain (the closest possible word they could imagine to Enepsigos’ former position) for nothing. Enepsigos flared their smaller, curved wings--shaped like a falcon--and used Amduscias’ momentum to backflip in midair, planting their feet in Amduscias’ chest to send the sword-wielder over and past them.

Amduscias cartwheeled in the deluge, larger wings rending and warping the air at a speed and force equal to that of airliner’s. The sound of their rapid maneuvering was covered by a convenient peal of thunder, but the force of the displaced air bent the nearby small trees and shattered the window of a parked car.

It was so easy to forget, wrapped up in the mundane life of Lavernius Tucker, that he was actually a disgraced being of once nigh imaginable power, who still possessed unbelievable power.

Parry. Parry. Lunge. Thrust. Block. Shove. Thrust. Slash.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Were a mortal to see them, they would only see flickering blur of golden light. And were they to look too close, its luminescence was sure to blind them.

Every engagement shook the air, eventually overcoming even the sound of thunder. They rose higher and higher, high above the town, eventually breaching the storm clouds. Here, the storm was further agitated by their excess Grace, lighting crackling between the clouds at such a frequency as to become akin to an enormous lightbulb.

Amduscias had learned how to fight long before Adam and Eve even had the thought to bump uglies.

Amduscias had helped instruct armies, had molded warriors from commoners.

Amduscias was losing.

Amduscias had grown rusty over the centuries, as man progressed from bronze spears to automatic rifles. They had often barely bothered to use their weapons; their Grace could rend a man’s flesh from his bones, their feathers, razor sharp, could behead him in a single lazy swipe. They could flip cars with a single hand, and none but the most powerful weapons could pierce their skin.

Enepsigos was lithe, quick, and still devastatingly precise. A few cuts became a handful, then a dozen, then a couple dozen. They were slowly bleeding away, their Grace being forced to heal them and slowly draining. It seemed Enepsigos had continued to evolve with the centuries, which really wasn't surprising. They’d almost always found a way to land right-side up.

Until Amduscias had Junior, he’d always rejected the form he took, tolerated his surroundings with barely concealed disdain. And now, it seemed that arrogance he’d so desperately held on to would be his undoing.

Enepsigos enacted a complicated move that had his wrist twisting, twisting until the ligaments and bones, stronger than steel cables, dislocated and tore. Another move twisted his shoulder out of his socket. A cartwheeling kick with the power to crush stone sent him rocket back towards the unforgiving ground. He clipped two trees and destroyed a ravine before he finally crashed into a small marsh. A legion of bacteria and fungi were vaporized as the burning Fallen flailed in the goop, wings propelling him out of the worst of it before he collapsed on the bank.

Steam roiled off his frame as Grace shimmered around him, replenishing itself from the medley of life over and under and around him, but not fast enough.

The wet ground abruptly became dry and crumbly as Enepsigos gracefully hit the ground in front of his battered form, wing draped about her like an exotic cloak. Overhead, the thickness of the trees blocked the worst of the rain, and the worst of the storm was several miles away, so he could hear each deliberate step as the heat of her Grace came closer and closer.

He waited until she was less than a step away before abruptly propelling himself up, wings pushing the air down to lend to his momentum with a thunderous snap. A dagger, created from the last dredges of him power, blazed to life in his hand.

Then Enepsigos’ fiery fist collided with his face, and he knew no more.

A man, a human, with a crisscross of lines forming a jagged X on his tanned skin. A soldier, a sniper, emerging from shadow itself, a figure wreathed in a fiery orange glow of Grace looming behind him.

An angel, appearing beside the duo, wrapped in a white lab-coat, glasses glinting from the glow of his pure white wings. A true angel. An Unfallen.

A huge form, more beast than man, dressed in a simple T-shirt and jeans. His face was obscured by a large domed helmet with a large golden visor; a medley of voices, echoed around him, overlapping and incoherent.

And at the feet of all of them lay his son. His little boy.

“Daddy!” Tears streamed down the young child’s face, his small face a mask of terror.

Then he threw his head back a screamed as flaming wings tore from his back.

The soldier and his shadow and the Unfallen disappeared. Only the beast-man remained. He, it, lifted it’s paw of a hand and hell-fire danced between its fingers.

“Daddy!” Only this time it came from the creature. His son was no longer on the ground. “Daddy!”

The creature took off his helmet.

“Wake up, Daddy!” the creature with his son’s face exclaimed, razor sharp teeth and burning red eyes glinting in the dim lighting.

“Wake up!”

Lavernius jerked awake, nearly falling out of bed. His Grace nearly lunged out, and only his fine-tuned control stopped it from blowing the walls out. As it was, the room grew uncomfortably warm.

Junior seemed unbothered by the sudden rise of heat. “Daddy, that cop lady is here to see you.”

His brow furrowed. Cop lady? What cop—?

He remembered.

“Dad, your bed’s on fire!”

Carolina gave a loud, obnoxious slurp of her pilfered coffee, leaning casually against the counter. The diner door was locked, with the shades down and the _Sorry, We're Closed!_ sign once again neatly flipped on the window. Upstairs, he could hear the happy humming of his son settling down to watch a cartoon.

He seethed. "You have three seconds."

"You're in danger and you've let yourself go."

"...Explain."

"Not everyone decided to just settle down, _Amduscias_. There's a lot of us who still want to go home."

"You think I don't?"

"I think you'd be willing to resist so long as you have your son."

"You don't know me, _Enepsigos_."

"You're telling me you'd leave your kid?" Carolina challenged, Grace thrumming with frustration; his own flared in challenge. "If someone offered you a golden ticket to the gates, so long as you abandoned your child, or worse, would you take it?"

He clamped his mouth shut, pride unwilling to heed her demand for answers even as his Grace flared in denial and horror; leave his son? Alone? A vision of his child, gazing longing to the sky from the dusty window of some orphanage filled his mind, and he shuddered at it.

"That still doesn't explain what this danger is," he replied instead.

"A lot of us want to go home, and while most have just accepted their lot in life, some are willing to do anything— _anything_ —to get back to Heaven."

She leaned forward, green eyes intent. "Some are crazy enough to kill. It's not all bad: rapists are a popular target to 'cleanse' or 'sacrifice'." Her face darkened. "But there are some targets that are eliminated because they are "unholy" even though they're technically innocent. Even though they're young."

Ice trickled down his spine. "Young? _Children_?"

She nodded grimly.

" _Why_? And what's that got to do with me? With _Junior_?"

She slipped into their native tongue. " _There are plenty of Fallen who do exactly what you've done: have a kid, settle down with a family. Every once in a while there was a zealous Fallen who killed another for 'sullying' themselves and killed the child for being an 'abomination'_. She hesitated. " _But it's only been in the last century or so that there are more being brought onto that line of thought. They've become organized by an Unfallen and a small Host."_

The dream--no, vision--shot through his mind. "Does he wear a labcoat? Glasses?"

"Yes." Her brow furrowed. "How did you…?"

He quickly explained the content of his vision, including the human sniper and the man with the golden helmet.

“The labcoat and glasses…he fancies himself a scientist, guiding humans the way he thinks they should be. Problem is, he’s not usually right.”

“Who?”

“… _Jeremiel._ ”

“…fuck,” Tucker breathes, because knowing there is an Unfallen letting kids die and hearing about it, and it being someone who knew? If he had a heart, if would have stopped.

"I don't know about either of those humans," Carolina sipped her coffee, grimaced, and quickly warmed it up with a quick application of Grace. "But his use of human warriors to further his goal is not unusual. There are always humans blindly willing to do something stupid and harmful if they think it'll get them an express ride to Heaven."

"...Father has said nothing about this?"

She snorted. "I don't hear anything. Jeremiel claimed that his path was Father's approved, but surgical strikes against the rot of humanity? It's not His style."

"True. He's more of a 'wipe the slate clean’ kind of guy." Hesitantly, he described the warped version of his son.

Carolina took a deep, unnecessary breath. " _I've only seen two like your son before. Humans call them Nephilim. I killed one, and saw the other after they’d been killed_."

Tucker willed his Grace not to explode at her revelation. " _Why_?" he asked finally, evenly.

" _The one I killed was an adult. I say killed because I landed the final blow, but it took five of us just to fight him. He killed two."_

Tucker’s brows shot up. Five Fallen could destroy an army. To kill two…

“ _His power was...aweing. We were cocky, but regardless...he was far stronger, far more adaptable than anything we’d ever experienced. It took days to recover.”_ She shook her head, lost in her memories.

“ _And the other?”_

Had he been mortal, he would have been petrified at the sheer look of rage that crossed over Carolina’s face.

“ _A child. I didn’t see her until she was already dead, but...she was no more than an_ infant. _And they had snapped her neck and begun to cut her open, to cast spells upon the body, all to see what made her tick.”_

The mug exploded from the force of her grip, lukewarm coffee slipping over her fingers. Her wings flared out, knocking over a stool as she struggled to rein in her anger.

Tucker wanted to tell her to calm down, seeing as there were people walking outside the window and one had even stopped to gawk through the glass, but he hadn’t even seen the child, and he was angry.

Funny, how having your own kid made you care about others. He certainly wouldn’t have a few centuries ago.

Eventually, Enepsigos got their rage under control, and their wings slipped back into her form. The man staring through the glass kept attempting to open the door. They both ignored him.

“ _I killed the ones who stood over her and had her body burned. Prayed over it. And then I left. We weren’t fulfilling Father’s vision at that point. We were just butchers.”_ She stood and began mopping up the spilled coffee. “That was over a century ago, but…”

Tucker understood. What was a century to eternity? “Have you heard anything since?”

“Only whispers. Echoes of Grace, hear and there. I spent almost sixty years just trying to lay low. Luckily, there were a few wars to distract their attention, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I haven’t seen another Fallen since I moved here and met you.” Carolina shrugged. “Honestly, I probably would have left as soon as I could fake a death, if I hadn’t found out about your son. There was a pretty good chance, unless the Freelancers have changed their stance, that you have been part of them.”

Despite the circumstances, Tucker snorted. “The Freelancers?”

She rolled her verdant eyes. “Apparently, several of them fought in the Crusades as mercenaries. Somehow, a bunch of them started calling the Fallen under his banner ‘Freelancers’...”

Bang!Bang!Bang!

They turned to look at the nearly hysterical man still outside the shop. Carolina sighed, and with a flare of Grace, conjured her uniform and briskly walked to the door. Unlocking it, she had to steady the man who nearly tumbled through it before grasping her arms with a look of worshipful awe.

"I-I-I saw you," he stammered. "You-you...officer, you... _wings_ …"

"Sir, have you been drinking lately?"

"What?" he blinked rapidly. "What--no, you--"

"Sir, you don't seem well. Have you been feeling unwell recently?"

The man made jerky, rapid gestures as his human mind struggled to comprehend the sight of what he’d seen, and Tucker sighed and wandered back upstairs, rolling his eyes and trusting--and wasn’t that something? To trust--that Carolina would get rid of him, and lock the door behind her to boot.

In the ratty living room, Junior beamed as he reclined on the couch. “You’re not in trouble!”

“Nope,” he responded, ruffling the boy’s hair and ignoring his squirming. “We were just reconnecting. Getting to know each other again.”

“Was she lost too?”

The breath caught in Tucker’s throat. It seemed as if the conversation on his home had been days ago, rather than a few hours prior. He thought about the Enepsigos he’d known in Heaven, the single-minded determination they’d had in fulfilling Lucifer’s dream, the dream they’d shared about getting their Father’s love and attention returned to them, rather than some backstabbing, short-minded apes.

They hadn’t crossed the line though. For all of their determination, Enepsigos—Carolina—had never truly wanted the humans dead (which is more than he could say for himself). She’d just fallen in the same trap so many of them had: Lucifer was brilliant and wise and charismatic and the big brother to them all. Father was...distant. Detached. Almost clinical at times.

It was no question who was the one so many chose to follow.

But they loved Him. Oh, how they loved Him. Even now, Tucker still loved Him.

He hated himself for that.

But now…

He let himself listen to the bustle and murmur of voices and souls across the city, humans going to and fro. Downstairs he felt a slight surge of Grace, and the sound of a man nearly choking on his tongue and knew that Carolina had flashed her wings, just to get a reaction, even as she continued to professionally soothe him, and Tucker felt something like tentative fondness swell within him. It would be strained for a while, but Enepsigos seemed here to stay, and he wasn't adverse to getting to know them again, nor was Enepsigos trying to discourage a connection.

In fact, they seemed to crave the company. It was only after he'd had Junior that he'd realized how lonely he'd been, never being able to look past his guilt and rage and mixed feelings about the mortals around him to connect with them, even superficially.

Carolina didn't have a Junior, and she'd been emotionally betrayed by the family she'd tried to restore ties to. Perhaps her willingness to warn him and kick him back into shape was rooted in a sense of desperate longing for kin as much as it was her sense of honor.

"Yeah, buddy," he murmured. "I think she was."

Downstairs, an ambulance had arrived and the mortal was frantically babbling about angels and how she wasn't human, dammit! Tucker sighed as Carolina's Grace flared again, and the man's protests grew even more hysterical.

He might be willing to reconnect, but millennia could not change the fact that, whatever form they took, Enepsigos could be a complete and utter bitch.

Four months later, things had appeared to stabilize in Tucker's life. Junior seemed less sick, less often. Carolina was a frequent visitor, and her recommendations to her fellow officers had increased the diner's standing and traffic, so much so that he'd finally gotten a loan and remodeled the place a bit, adding a sleeker look and better appliances and furniture. He'd even hired an employee: a man by the name of David Washington, who despite being quiet and at times a bit hapless, was snarky and quick-witted and taken with Junior. His soul was a bit dark, and at times he looked haunted and haggard, but there was something about him that made Tucker keep him around.

And of course, Carolina had to throw a wrench in his life-- _again_.

The second time he met another Fallen, he came in to Washington filling the other's cup. The man was huge, nearly seven feet tall and balancing precariously on the too small stool at the diner's bar. He had tanned skin, with warm hazel eyes, a stupid-looking grin, and a mane of brunette curls. He wore a bright blue police officer's uniform, similar to that of the redheaded woman's who was sitting next to him and was giving Tucker a Cheshire grin.

"Hey," Carolina smirked, giving a lazy, two-fingered salute. "Look who just transferred in." The man-mountain grinned, and his Grace rippled like that of a wiggling puppy.

" _Uzza_ ," Tucker breathed.

His grin grew impossibly wider at the sound of his name. "Hello!" he chirped—fucking _chirped_ —in response. "My name is Caboose! Michael J. Caboose!" His tone was happy and proud, but his brow was scrunched in concentration, seemingly struggling to remember his own (fake) identity.

“ _Corporal_ Caboose,” Carolina corrected gleefully, like the smug, obnoxious asshole she was.

Tucker stared at his two grinning cousins, acutely aware of his eavesdropping patrons and Washington's arched and questioning eyebrow, and felt a headache coming on. "Dad damn it."

**Author's Note:**

> Funny thing, this fic was supposed to be about 4k words shorter. Other funny thing: I created the name as a joke to the DC existence of the Lazarus Pits; mystical pits that, like the man Lazarus, brings people back to life, with some nasty side effects. Unfortunately, After creating the name, I realized it didn't make since if you weren't a DC fan, but was still too lazy to change it.
> 
> Also in case your curious about the names, I used them from [here](https://angelicpedia.com/lists/list-fallen-angels/).


End file.
